Telephone access of Guantanamo Bay detainees
has a lounge for captives to phone home.]] In the first six years it was open authorities occasionally allowed Guantanamo captives' phone calls to their family. In 2008 rules were set in place to start to allow all captives who met certain conditions to have one call home per year. mirror mirror mirror mirror On September 29 2009 the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that Guantanamo captives and their families would be allowed to communicate through a two-way video link. A similar facility had already been available to captives held in extrajudicial detention in Bagram Theater Internment Facility since May 2008. This facility has been available to American GIs for many years. The first video call was made between a Pakistani captive and his family. His family traveled to the ICRC's Peshawar office where one end of the video link had been set up. Salim Ahmed Hamdan When Salim Ahmed Hamdan was allowed a call home, on August 6, 2008, after his Guantanamo Military Commission acquitted him of conspiracy and convicted him of material support for terrorism, his was the 107th call. mirror Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi's call home Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, a Yemeni who faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission, told his Presiding Officer he had not been able to acquire a Yemeni lawyer because he had not been able to contact his family during his six years of detention. mirror mirror On May 22, 2008 his Presiding Officer ordered that arrangements should be made for him to have a one hour phone call home, by July 1, 2008. Pauline Storum, deputy commander for Public Affairs for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, told reporters later that same day that arrangements for the call had already been put in place, and that the call had taken place. mirror mirror Suzanne Lachelier, the officer who had been authorized to coordinate the call said she was surprised to read newspaper reports that the call had taken place, when she hadn't had time to begin making the arrangements. Storun was later to send a retraction to reporters, but never explained how she came to make the mistake. Mohammed Al Qarani Muhammad Hamid Al Qarani, a captive younger than Omar Khadr, possibly the youngest remaining captive, was allowed his first phone call. In 2009 Mohammed Jawad's family claimed he was born in 1990 or 1991, which would have made him the youngest remaining captive. But instead, he phoned former captive, recently released Al Jazeera journalist Sami Al Hajj. He told Al Hajj that conditions had worsened after the election of United States President Barack Obama. Al Qarani was repatriated less than two months after the call, on June 13 2009. Abdul Al Salam Al Hilal Abdul Al Salam Al Hilal was allowed his first call home in April 2009, and his two sons died two days later, in an apparent accident with a hand grenade. In a second phone call in August 2009 he told his family that he feared he would be assassinated in Guantanamo. He told them that if he were to die in Guantanamo they should not believe reports he had committed suicide. See also * Guantanamo captives' mail privileges * Captive's library in Guantanamo References Category:Guantanamo Bay captives legal and administrative procedures